hold on hope
by thelightningstrike
Summary: I will hold on hope. DracoAstoria.


hold on hope

_a/n: Yet another fragmented Draco/Astoria piece, I'm afraid. This time it has more of a storyline and is set to the lyrics of The Cave by the fantastic Mumford & Sons. If you haven't heard of them, go and listen! I hope you enjoy this, sorry about the infrequency of my updates._

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_But I will hold on hope,_

Draco looks for Astoria wherever he goes, or rather, goes to the places he knows are her favourites hoping to catch one glimpse of her, the elusive object of his affection that she is. He spends four hours one day in her favourite Muggle coffee shop, repeatedly buying mugs of some rather ghastly tea just in case she happens to stop by. She doesn't.

He even loiters by St Mungo's hoping to catch her as she dashes in and out of work, but some Muggles become too concious of him after a while and he has to move. He sends letters, almost daily, to receive no reply. He still meets up with Blaise for drinks however, and after one terrible evening finds himself emptying his stomach of all of the liquor he had consumed after Blaise had asked him to be his best man. Even now, after feeling as guilty as he supposed he possibly could, he knows he cannot give up on her.

_and I won't let you choke, on that noose around your neck,_

Blaise has been a close friend of his for a very long time, and if it wasn't for him being engaged to who (Draco is sure) is the love of his life, he wouldn't despise him nearly as much as he does now. When they meet up, everything Blaise says seems complete and utter idiocy, from "Tory and I think we may get married on Christmas Day" (which Draco knows Astoria would hate above all things, or at least, second to being called Tory) to "I've told Tory she ought to give up being a Healer as soon as we're married, so that we can start a family" (Draco cannot believe that Blaise hasn't realised that Astoria's career is everything to her).

He knows that Blaise will choke her, smother her. He knows that Blaise will change her completely.

_and I'll find strength in pain,_

Draco bumps into Astoria, _finally_, in the most unexpected of places. She is pacing back and forth outside his villa in Italy- it's lucky he even stops by, as he's recently taken to staying in his London flat.

"Hello," she says, frowning at him as if he was late for an appointment. "You took your bloody time."

Draco gapes. "I'm sorry- took my?"

"Bloody time, yes."

"I didn't know we had arranged to meet."

"Of course you didn't, but I would have thought that after two weeks of me avoiding you completely you may have realised that every spare moment I had," she pauses, embarrassed suddenly, "I was waiting here for you." A blush spreads across her cheeks and he has to hold back from grinning like a fool.

"Ah, I see." He smiles then, and her eyes grow sad, so he reaches out to her. She folds easily into his arms, burying her face in his chest.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles.

"Don't marry him," he replies, as if it really is that simple.

She pulls back, her eyes glistening although he knows she'll never cry. "I shouldn't be here. I really shouldn't be here. I'm getting married next week for Merlin's sake!" She sits down on the low wall that runs across the front of his garden, her head sinking into her hands.

Draco splutters, her words paining him physically. "Next- next week? I thought it was a Christmas wedding?"

"Blaise decided he couldn't wait," she says, and looks up at him.

Draco falters for a second, then kneels in front of her, taking her hands in his. He looks up at her, his jaw set in determination. "Then run away with me."

Astoria rolls her eyes and stands up, walking away. "It isn't time for fairytales now, Draco. Just- give up, okay? I want you," she looks away now, "to give up on me."

Then she apparates, and it's so fast he barely has time to blink.

_and I will change my ways,_

He stops everything: the letters, the lingering, the late-night drinks with Blaise. He tells Blaise he can't be his best man. He packs up and moves back into his Italian home, using the same technique he'd used three years ago: escape in the form of total isolation. He ignores Blaise's letters. If he's going to give up on her like she wished then it's better for him, Draco, to never see either of them again. Hopefully soon Blaise will just give up on him too.

He goes for long walks along the beach to clear his head, but they always end with him sitting on the low wall outside his villa, head in hands, thinking about Astoria.

_I'll know my name as it's called again._

His self-imposed exile obviously didn't work as on the day of the wedding he finds himself in London, not too far away from the hotel Astoria and Blaise are to be married in. He can't help but think bitterly how much Astoria will hate to be married in a Ministry-approved Diagon Alley hotel watched by hundreds of people she barely knows.

He even goes as far as to go to the bar within the hotel, asking for a large Firewhiskey and downing it in one. He waits until he hears rapturous cheers and clapping and then, sickened, apparates back to Italy. He's just unlocking the front door when, impossibly, unbelievably, he hears a voice-

"Draco?"

He spins, and there she is, in a long and elegantly simple white dress, her hair swept back from her face in a messy bun pinned in with real white flowers, looking as if her only purpose was to take his breath away. The next minute, before he can appreciate any other aspect of her ethereal, radient appearance, her arms are around his shoulders and she's whispering "I got cold feet, and I heard Italy was rather warm this time of year."

He can't understand why she'd want to make jokes at this moment in time but his arms tighten around her and they just hold each other, until he feels tears leak through his shirt and he raises her chin to kiss her.

He tells her, afterwards, that he loves her. She replies that she's sorry she'd ever doubted it.


End file.
